


All is Fair

by TheGrinningKitten



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (probably), Drama, M/M, Out of Character, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 08:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGrinningKitten/pseuds/TheGrinningKitten
Summary: He found he could quite appreciate the “bad” side of the guardian.





	All is Fair

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this in Russian (can be read [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8079536)) but, "by popular demand" translated it into English.
> 
> Special thanks to ThyneOwnSlave ([DA](https://www.deviantart.com/thyneownslave)/[AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictorianEmpress/profile)) for being my beta-reader/editor for the translation!

All is quiet in the Doodle Sphere. The calm gurgling of water and barely noticeable ringing of the magic-charged atmosphere is only disturbed by the sounds coming from the one-way window to one of the universes — it serves as a TV to the two inhabitants of this place.

Error leisurely spread his arms over the back of the couch, only half-listening to what is going on inside Undernovela. He isn’t watching the “screen” anyway: Ink settled his head in the other’s lap with a pillow shoved under it for comfort — mostly his own, since Error’s haphephobic tendencies haven’t applied to the artist in a long while.

The black skeleton watches the creator’s face, eyes tracing its every line. He watches the other squint, smiling at what’s happening on the “screen”, admires the way his eyelights change. Error’s chest is overfilled with some emotion he can’t fully grasp, and, on a whim, he says:

“I love you.”

Ink flinches. In a heartbeat his eyelights go through a dozen different shapes. He turns away from the “screen”, and their eyes meet.

 

***

 

It started with three words as well.

“Come here often?”

Error glitched at the remark that came from right beside him. Shrugging the beginnings of a stupor off, he leaped to his feet, turning to face the owner of the voice.

Ink. Of course. Who else could it be? Turned out that the walking headache was sitting just a couple of meters away from him.

“What do you want?” Error growled, holding his strings at the ready.

“I only said that you’ve been coming here often. Didn’t know you were a fan of Outertale.” The artist shrugged, making no move to grab his paintbrush, and added almost accusingly, “It’s just an observation, nothing else. You just can’t keep from showing off your strings, can you?”

“‘Just an observation, nothing else’,” the destroyer mocked him — to which Ink muttered something akin to “my voice isn’t _that_ squeaky”. He was about to add another biting remark, when it hit him. “Wait a sec. What do you mean, ‘I’ve been coming here often’? Were you watching me?!”

Ink instantly threw his hands up in a pacifying gesture:

“I’m not watching you. I just came here a few times to check on things — and you were here every time. Well, today I came across you again, and I thought, hey, maybe I could, you know, stick around for a bit or something.”

For a few seconds Error was at a loss as to what interested — or annoyed — him the most. Finally, the question was formed:

“Why the fuck?”

“And why not?” was said without a hint of a smile, so, perhaps, Ink wasn’t mocking him.

“And why would you?” The destroyer wasn’t about to admit defeat.

Ink shrugged, but his companion continued to glare daggers at him, so, sighing, he admitted, “Blue said, that it’s possible to socialize without talking at all — without even doing anything together. You just sit in the same space as the person, and each of you thinks their own thoughts, and that would feel like socializing too.” He shrugged. “I was curious.”

Error cringed.

“And you still weren’t able to keep your mouth shut.”

Ink responded with a flustered smile and held his arms up helplessly, as if to say, _You see how it is._

The black skeleton snorted and almost reluctantly made the blue strings vanish. The artist was a pain in the ass, sure, but he wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight.

“So can I?” Ink perked up.

“Can you what?”

“Sit with you?” And, seeing how the other’s expression changed, he hurried to add, “I promise to keep quiet!”

Error gave him a skeptical look, considered it, gave up and sat back down.

Against all expectations, the artist actually stayed quiet — even when the destroyer succumbed to the force of habit and started to crochet.

The silence was so comfortable that, when Error’s eyes were too tired to work and he was forced to put away the unfinished handicraft, he looked to the side and swore in glitch upon seeing Ink just a few meters away from him. He’d forgotten all about him.

The other looked up from the sketchbook he’d been drawing in, tongue stuck out in concentration. The distraction had him forgetting to pull the tongue back in.

The black skeleton was about to say something, but got up instead. He shuffled in place, tried his best to school a fierce expression onto his face, gave up and left through a portal.

He ended up not picking a fight after all.

 

Apparently, Ink had decided to turn such meetings into a tradition, because next time Error was hanging out in Outertale, the artist called to him:

“Hey, Error? Mind if I sit with you again?”

And the other cursed a bit, as was normal, but found no good reason to refuse.

And it wasn’t the last time it happened.

Moreover, Error started to understand what Ink meant when he said, “It would feel like socializing too”. Because sitting under the stars without Ink was very different — emptier, perhaps? And despite Error’s love for emptiness, he started to get some sort of satisfaction out of those meetings as well.

They still clashed in the battlefield, ready to fight to the death, but here, under the stars, was the place of their unspoken truce.

Error got used to it, got used to these meetings — so much so, that he didn’t even flinch when Ink interrupted their silent sitting with a question.

“Do you think that’s Cassiopeia?” He was pointing towards somewhere in the depths of the cosmos. Meeting Error’s eyes, he added, “Well, you seem like a fan of stars? So I figured, you knew.”

Error frowned, squinted as he looked in the direction the artist was pointing in.

“The one that looks like a zigzag? Well, or like a ‘W’?” he muttered, even though his eyes hadn’t focused once. “Yes. That’s Cassiopeia. Now leave me alo…”

“And is that the Little Dipper?” Ink hurried to point in the other direction. In reality, he was watching Error — which direction was he looking in and how.

“Yes,” the black skeleton muttered, barely turning his head in the corresponding direction. “Leave me alone.” He returned to crocheting, turning away from Ink a bit to show the conversation was over.

“Okay,” the artist conceded but still watched the destroyer from the corner of his eye for a long while.

 

Ink came to their next meeting, carrying two bars of chocolate.

“You want some?”

At first Error squinted at the offered candy bar with suspicion, but when the artist was about to pull away, he snatched the treat out of his hand. He gave the packaging another once-over, didn’t see a reason to be suspicious and shoved the whole bar into his mouth — wrapping and all. With his mouth full he asked,

“Where did you get it?”

“Stole it.”

Error almost choked, chuckling.

“Seriously?”

“And what, you thought saving the Multiverse pays well?” Ink laughed in return, taking a bite out of his own bar.

Error swallowed down the chocolate, considered the artist’s question, smirked and shook his head.

A couple of tongues shoved a wad of wrapping onto his palm, and, opening a small window to Underfell, he threw the trash there. He was about to close the mini-portal when Ink called:

“Wait.”

Before Error could ask what the problem was, another wad of wrapping flew into the window.

Ink only shrugged at the destroyer’s surprised look. Error grinned. He found he could quite appreciate the “bad” side of the guardian.

 

They were stargazing together again when Ink got one of his “bright” ideas.

“Error, can I do something?”

The black skeleton gave a suspicious look to the small paintbrush that the artist was holding in his hands now.

“It won’t hurt, I promise,” Ink assured him and, after giving it some extra thought, added, “Sans’s honor.”

“Just how much of a Sans do you think you are?” Error snorted.

“Uh… About as much as you are?”

“My point exactly.”

Ink frowned, not happy to be brought down like that, but soon his thoughts veered back to his idea.

“So, can I?” Stars shone in his eye-sockets, and the artist leaned forward, making the destroyer back away in sync with him. “Just think, why would I want to hurt you right now?”

“How the hell would I know what’s going on in that noggin of yours?!”

“But Error!” Ink whined, looking more like a pleading child by the second.

They spent ten seconds or so just staring at each other in a semblance of a silent discussion. Error gave in first.

“Whatever!”

“Yes!” Ink jumped on the spot, celebrating the small victory, and readied his brush. “On the count of three! One…”

The brush ran over the red eye-sockets. Cursing in glitch, the black skeleton fell over backwards. Before he even managed to sit up, the blue strings had already wrapped around the artist.

“The hell are you doing?!” Error confronted Ink. The other only stared at him, smiling, which only served to make him angrier. “Getting cocky, you colourful bastard? Forgot what it feels like to drag your half-broken body home?! You asshole, you…!” He choked on words, taking notice of what the cheeky artist had drawn on him.

Glasses.

He blinked a couple of times, not daring to turn away from the very self-satisfied Ink, who nodded towards the sky, inviting Error to take a look. Hesitant to follow the silent advice, the black skeleton threw his head back — and froze.

The stars were all right there, and he could see each and every one of them — not the uncertain glow and haziness that he usually saw them as, but real — so sharp and so bright — stars!

Error seemed to forget how to breathe. His strings grew loose on their own, and Ink stood on solid ground, watching the destroyer’s reaction with a smile.

 

“Come on!”

Error stared at the outstretched hand.

“Where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

The black skeleton’s eyes moved up to the artist’s face. He was wearing the recent gift, so he wasn’t squinting.

“It’s a good surprise,” Ink adjusted the statement. “It’s not dangerous, and it doesn’t require any effort on your part. Honest.”

Error hesitated, considered all the pros and cons, clacking a crochet hook against his phalanxes.

“Lead the way.” Strings wrapped around the artist’s palm.

Ink beamed, promised, “You’ll love it!” and dragged him into a portal.

Unlike Error’s windows that worked like a common doorway, Ink’s ink seemed to pull his body apart to put it together in a completely different place. The destroyer shivered, clenching his teeth. It felt somewhat similar to his reboots, only his memory seemed to be all in place, and nothing extra glitched in either.

“So why the hell are we here?” He gave the wasteland around them an unenthusiastic look.

“Look up!” Ink threw his head back, smiling. “We’re just in time.”

Error followed his advice. The sky consisted of a great big dark nothing.

“I repeat: why the hell…” He trailed off.

Right in front of his eyes blue and purple mingled with the blackness, mixing into vortexes, blooming and exploding into clouds. And then, one by one, lights started to appear — bright or dim, on their own or in bunches.

“It’s the birth of a sky,” Ink answered the unspoken question.

Error shivered. His fingers twitched on reflex, but no strings appeared.

 

They were still meeting in Outertale, but the location they spent their peaceful time in changed sometimes. Ink kept coming up with new places to bring Error to. They’d visited a dozen places with the most varied of starry skies, checked out an ocean-themed universe where the seabed was where the stars were, did a taste-test in a universe that consisted entirely of candy, earned one of the Swap Sanses a stutter with their pranks—

And Error was loving it.

And sometimes he stopped their battles and left to his Anti-Void early just so that during their next outing neither of them would have to limp.

 

One time when Ink created a portal and offered his hand, Error challenged his fears and wrapped his fingers around it. He almost rebooted from stress, but, on the bright side, the jump to a different universe was much more smooth and only slightly disorienting.

Next time the destroyer barely hesitated when grabbing Ink’s outstretched hand.

 

“Error? Can I ask you a question?”

“Well?”

This time Ink came to their meeting sporting a multitude of wounds, even though he hadn’t faced off against Error in a pretty long while. He must’ve been hurt by someone else. The artist had the talent of getting his ass in trouble even without the destroyer’s involvement. However, this was also the reason they were burning through their time chatting instead of travelling: they were waiting for Ink to paint over his injuries.

“Why are you so bent on destroying all the universes?”

“Gonna try to talk me out of it?” Error frowned menacingly.

“No.” Ink shrugged with one shoulder, since the other was hanging down as dead weight so far. “I’m just curious. It’s just that we fight so often, but I still have no idea what you’re fighting for.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times before, I’m getting rid of the universes because all of them are errors.”

“Nah, I’ve heard that before. But I mean… _Why_ are they errors? What’s correct then? Which universe?”

Error opened his mouth to answer and froze.

“Error?”

The destroyer thought about it, his fingertips twitching in nervousness, and glitched out with the suddenness of an explosion, rebooting.

“Shut up,” he demanded first thing after coming to.

“Okay.” Ink only shrugged — with both shoulders this time — and started to paint over a crack in his radius, humming a tune he’d heard in Dancetale.

“Ink!”

“Huh?” The artist perked, realizing he’d missed a question.

“I asked,” Error reminded huffily, “why you are protecting the universes. How are you so sure they _aren’t_ errors? Aren’t some useless garbage?”

“They may be garbage,” Ink responded carelessly, “but they aren’t useless.” He stared the destroyer right in the eye with a very serious expression, making the other shudder. “Without them I would cease to be.”

Error stared at the other for a couple of seconds, and then he laughed — nervously rather than happily.

“So you’re just damn selfish!” He couldn’t believe the answer was so simple. “All of this good guy facade — just for your own sake!”

“I guess so.” The artist gave him a calm smile in response and returned to restoring his limb.

The black skeleton was taken aback.

“Wait, that’s it?”

“And why not?”

Error didn’t find anything to say in return, only got lost in thought — for a long time this time.

 

When, after entering a new universe, Error forgot to let go of Ink’s hand, the other didn’t remind him.

When the destroyer forgot for the fifth time in a row, it didn’t seem like forgetfulness anymore.

 

“What is this bull?!” Error was running out of patience. He had been trying to access the familiar timeline of Outertale, but the portal kept opening into nothingness. Sure, the black skeleton had already figured out what the problem was, but he stubbornly kept at it.

Finally, the ardor ran out, and he stood still in indecision. Upon giving it some thought, he opened a portal to Underswap.

The guardian of the Multiverse came to Blue’s rescue with enviable promptness. Error was almost jealous.

Dream made his appearance right after the artist and was immediately knocked off his feet, as Error threw the string-bound Blue at the keeper of dreams and slipped into a portal.

Ink showed up in the Anti-Void soon after, ready to counter an attack, but lowered his brush. Error showed with his very being that he wasn’t in a mood for a fight.

“Next time just spill some paint,” the artist advised, putting the paintbrush behind his back. “That’s both quicker and requires less work.”

“But my way is more fun.” The destroyer smirked, but the smile quickly left his face. “Where?” he demanded.

“Where…” Ink realized what he was asked about a moment later. He seemed exhausted in that moment as he admitted, “I didn’t get there in time.” And he looked like he really regretted that.

An uncomfortable silence fell over them.

Not without hesitation, Error reached out, grabbed the artist by the wrist and pulled him through a portal. They came out into a meadow, scaring fireflies into the night air. It was the very same universe that Ink had taken him to the first time they travelled together — only a few months later into its existence.

He slipped his hand lower, weaved his fingers together with Ink’s, gave the elegant palm a squeeze... and then felt the gesture being returned.

 

“Well, Nightmare,” Error hummed, glancing at Ink, who was laying flat on the ink-stained ground, and turned towards the person responsible for such a sight. “I see the goop’s finally gotten to your brain.”

Killer grinned appreciatively from behind his boss’s back. Nightmare himself clicked his tongue in annoyance, reluctantly putting his mini-celebration on hold.

“What do you want, Error?”

“Oh, nothing much.” Error’s smile was almost cute. “Just a tiny hiccup there. You see,” the smile turned into an angry grimace, “you happened to mess with _my_ enemy!”

Nightmare mumbled something that sounded very much like, “Even crazier than I thought,” and asked:

“And didn’t you want him to die? So what difference does it make who does him in?” The tentacles swayed, aiming, and flew at the artist, intending to finish him off. Blue strings pulled Ink’s body right from under the attack. Rock shards flew into the air instead of splatters of inky blood.

Ink finally noticed a new arrival to today’s battle, nodded in the destroyer’s general direction, smiled the light smile of an exhausted creature — “Hey, Error!” — and passed out.

The destroyer snorted, hanging the limp body up on his strings, and turned to face the grumbling Nightmare:

“You’re still here?” He cringed as if he smelled something nasty and waved him off carelessly. “Shoo.”

The lord of nightmares refused to take it anymore. Error had to evade a couple of tentacles and a blaster shot — coming from Dust who came to his boss’s aid — before he got a chance to counterattack. He used that moment wisely: wrapped his strings around Nightmare, threw him through a portal and into one of the young universes Ink had shown him recently and closed off the escape route. The universe in question was exclusively pacifistic and positive. Let Nightmare suffer.

The entourage of the lord of negativity froze in hesitation. Fighting Ink had already taken a lot out of them — and now they were up against a well-rested Error, while missing their leader to boot.

“Well,” the destroyer grinned, “shall we continue, or have we come to a mutual understanding?”

Dust, Horror and Killer shared a look. None of them moved.

“Great.” The black skeleton slipped into a portal, taking the white one with him. “Ciao!”

Ink came to in a soft hammock made of blue strings. His broken bones were put into place, held in position with those same strings and were healing already. Error was on guard nearby, crocheting and watching Undernovela.

The artist shifted to lie more comfortably.

“That’s where I say ‘thanks’, right?” He hid his smile behind the edge of his scarf, watching Error flinch.

The destroyer turned around, saw the “deadly-ill” skeleton’s pleased grin and snapped,

“Why the fuck are you awake?!” He threw whatever he was crocheting at Ink. A soft toy hit the artist in the forehead, and, upon turning it around in his hands, he saw that the toy — a puppet — had two different eyes and a long scarf. He laughed.

Error stilled, unable to come up with a fitting response, blushed and turned away, pulling his hood over his head and down to his nose.

 

The next time they met, a new decoration was tightly tied to the artist’s favorite paintbrush — a puppet made in Ink’s semblance.

The fight the destroyer started over it was more akin to roughhousing: zero bloodshed and a ton of jests.

After they’d had their share of chasing each other around, they fell onto the grass in a universe with a name they couldn’t be bothered to remember. Wind was rustling the leaves. Crickets were singing somewhere out of sight.

Ink weaved their fingers together in an almost casual gesture and moved closer, pressing himself to Error’s side. The other shuddered, took a noisy breath, slowly exhaled and didn’t move away.

 

Ink made their next surprise journey into a special event — even warned about it in advance. Error was nervous when the artist pulled him into a portal.

Once on the other side of the jump, Error gasped and remained standing with his mouth wide open. They were standing on a floating island, surrounded by hundreds, thousands of such islands. Wherever the destroyer looked, those patches of magic filled the space, going on seemingly for forever.

Knowing your existence is meaningless is one thing, but seeing actual proof to it…

“This…” Error gulped. A wave of glitches rolled over his body. “Is this…?”

“Yes.” Ink answered the question he couldn’t bear to voice.

The destroyer flinched, let the artist’s hand fall out of his slack fingers and plopped onto the ground.

“Erro…”

“Shut it.” He tried to snap as was his habit, but he only managed a plea.

Ink grew silent and sat down onto the ground beside the destroyer. The other glitched from time to time, making a screeching noise that sounded suspiciously similar to sobbing.

The wait was growing longer, and Error kept glitching and mumbling something unintelligible about goals and memories. The guardian of the Multiverse carefully held the black palm in his own, felt the other grip it like a lifeline and leaned forward, trying to look Error in the eye.

Error flinched, gripped the artist’s vest, hid his face in it. Ink only saw a glimpse of the other’s eye-sockets squeezed tightly shut in pain — not of the physical kind.

Silence reigned over them.

Though, upon putting his free hand — the other was still held by Error — over the hunched back, Ink felt the shudders of sobbing under his fingers.

 

Error had gone missing for three weeks, and when he came back, he went all out — in his usual style. The destroyer jumped from universe to universe: ripped the first few people he met apart, turned a couple of buildings into ruins and left through a portal — only to repeat it all.

Ink watched that from the sidelines and didn’t interfere, letting him run out of steam. After all, the destroyer didn’t take the souls of the humans, so everything was going to fix itself with the next reset. So why bother?

But the number of affected universes grew, and Error showed no signs of stopping. And, having lost his patience, Ink faced him in a fight.

They tore into each other like wild beasts. Roared in rage and spat their usual curses, hearing neither themselves nor each other over the noise of agitation in their heads. Drowned in some sort of desperation only the two of them could understand. Forgot what they were fighting for. Saw neither the terrified looks nor the damages around them — nothing but each other.

And after they ran out of strength, they fell into the Doodle Sphere together.

For a long while they were just lying next to each other, gripping each other’s clothes and breathing heavily as they stared only into each other’s eyes, finding the reflection of their own insanity inside them. A mix of blood and magic drew sticky lines over their faces, but neither moved to rub it away.

Ink’s fingers jerked spasmodically, gripped Error’s hoodie tighter, and the desperation pulled them under with renewed force. They ripped each other’s clothes, hissed at the pain in the disturbed wounds, bit down and licked the bitemarks clean. And howled, becoming one, finding something they were never searching for, in each other.

And afterwards, still clinging to each other, exhausted and filthy, they laughed, dissolving in a special, _only their own_ kind of insanity. And, on a whim, kissed for the first time — making that kiss impossibly gentle for creatures such as them.

 

That happened more than once. Error kept coming.

 

And one day he stopped leaving.

 

***

 

“I love you.”

These overused, stale words sound so genuine when coming from the ever-rough Error.

Ink flinches. In a heartbeat his eyelights go through a dozen different shapes. He turns away from the “screen”, and their eyes meet.

Error sees the corners of the artist’s eye-sockets pull up, reads happiness in that expression, and so he doesn’t immediately understand what’s happening when the other starts to laugh. No, not laugh — guffaw.

A mix of glitches and confusion keeps the destroyer from punching him there and then. That delay is enough for Ink to calm down a bit and manage to say in-between laughs:

“Finally!”

That pulls Error out of his stupor, but the artist rolls off the couch before the righteous punch can meet his face.

“What the hell, Ink?” Error snaps glitchily, jumping to his feet right after. He has just confessed something sacred, and Ink…!

And Ink takes a few steps away and, still giggling, messes with his scarf, straightening it. Isn’t there a better time for that?!

There’s a burn in Error’s chest, reminding him of the warmth that was still there just a minute ago. Succumbing to the feeling, Error tries to find an excuse for the artist’s behavior...

“Which paint have you overdosed on this time?”

“Huh?” The artist’s fingers instinctively run over the rainbow vials. A moment later he understands what Error is talking about and stops himself, still giggling a bit. “Nah, I haven’t drunk anything. At least, nothing I shouldn’t have.” He pauses at that thought and adds, “I think…”

“So why…”

“Because I’ve finally done it!” And he’s back to being excited again.

“‘Done it’? Done what?” Error is quickly losing the remainders of his patience. His fingers are shivering, ready to wrap the artist in strings, but the reflex is dulled by the time they’ve spent together. How long has it been? Months? Years? Decades?

“Made you fall in love.” It could be innocent like that — and Error would be able to forgive that — but Ink breaks the last of his hope with, “The experiment has been completed.”

“Experiment?” Error feels faint — or maybe that’s just an upcoming reboot.

“Yep!”

“Experiment?!” The destroyer loses the last shreds of his self-control. In his mind’s eye he sees the gentleness — and it’s fake, fake all the way through! — and he roars like a wounded beast. And he’s wounded, and the wound is almost deadly — only no one would ever see it. No one, except for Ink, who’s standing in front of him with a self-assured smirk on his face.

Error manages to shoot a blaster at the artist — it’s a miss. Then he’s pulled under by a reboot.

Ink meddles with the motionless body for a few moments, but Error’s clearly neutralized for a while this time. Deciding that he’s not in the mood to deal with the mess the other would make upon coming to his senses, the artist elegantly throws the glitch into a different part of the Anti-Void through a portal.

 

The lull in destruction goes on long enough for Ink to grow bored. After all, despite everything, Error is important to him in a special kind of way. Yes, the guardian of the Multiverse remains a soulless creature, but even he’s no stranger to attachments born out of shared past — and he shares more of it with Error than with anyone else.

So he’s excited to feel the characteristic cracking of a universe being pulled apart and rushes there like a moth to a light.

“Hey, Error!” he calls the moment he sees a familiar figure.

The black skeleton flinches, turns around, stares at the newcomer in confusion and says,

“And what do you want? Can’t wait to die?”

“Nah, just the usual!” The artist is already anticipating his favorite mix of fighting and banter.

“‘The usual’?” Error echoes, frowning. “Do I know you?”

Something snaps inside Ink, and, perhaps, he almost understands...


End file.
